Brown University Department of Physics
Quantum Processing in the Brain?
Building a laboratory quantum computer is now a billion dollar enterprise. But might we, ourselves, be quantum computers? While maintaining quantum coherence on macroscopic time scales is exceedingly unlikely in the warm wet brain, there is one exception: Nuclear spins. My strategy is one of reverse engineering, seeking to identify the biochemical substrate and mechanisms that could host such putative nuclear spin quantum processing. Remarkably, a specific neural qubit and a unique collection of ions, molecules and enzymes can be identified, illuminating an apparently single path towards quantum processing in the brain.
Source
This bird model is interesting:
https://physicsworld.com/a/birds-measure-magnetic-fields-using-long-lived-quantum-coherence/
Are birds on Li(6) better navigators?
if proton spin entanglement is the basis of some kind of neural quantum computing, then disrupting this spin should obliterate any quantum processing that is occurring. In an MRI, the brain is exposed to very high magnetic fields that align proton spins. Does this not influence/destroy entanglement? It does not seem that such fields affect cognitive function. However, maybe the field is just not strong enough. The paper I referenced on bird navigation also shows that their cryptochromes are sensitive to only a very specific field strength,
video needs to be centered on the speaker. Interesting talk though, will be checking up on this in the future.